Wisdom to Live By — Jim Cymbala

Now, I have an interesting and different kind of message for me to preach today to you, so I want your undivided attention, because I wanna just tell you a brief story, and then we're gonna get three nuggets of wisdom to help us live.

That's all, nuggets of wisdom to help us live. How many could use a couple nuggets of wisdom? Because the Bible says wisdom builds the house. You can have zeal, you can have energy, you can be strong, you can be smart, and without wisdom, you know what's gonna happen?

David’s Succession Crisis and Adonijah’s Rebellion

You're gonna go down the drain. We're gonna go back now thousands of years, and we're gonna go to the end of the life of King David. Now, King Saul was the first king of Israel, but God's choice was the man who succeeded him, and that was David.

And now David is at the end of his life. He's very old, can't get around, but he's alive, and as long as he's alive, he's the king. Now, he had, fortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, he had several wives and a whole brood of children.

So now the main question is who's gonna succeed King David? The oldest son and the one who would've been in line by age he's off the scene already. He's died because he led a rebellion against David. Anyone know his name who knows their Bible?

Absalom, and Absalom is no longer on the scene. So now while David is pining away, he's not giving thought to the fact that he could die at any second, and then chaos could ensue if it's not clear who's the next king.

But which son of which wife would be the king? The man who's oldest and in line is a man by the name of Adonijah, but Adonijah is taking things into his own hand, as we're gonna see. Now, Adonijah, whose mother was Haggith, put himself forward and said, I will be king.

So he got chariots and horses ready with 50 men to run ahead of him. His father had never interfered with him his whole life by asking, why do you behave as you do? Spoiled. He was also very handsome and was born next after Absalom, so he figured to be the guy.

Adonijah conferred with Joab, son of Zariah, that was the main general, the general of the army, and with Abiathar, the priest, that was the chief priest, and they gave him their support, even though they had supported David for decades.

But Zadok, the priest, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, who was a counselor to David, Nathan, the prophet, who was God's spokesman, Shimei and Rehi, and David's special guard did not join Adonijah. Adonijah then sacrificed sheep, cattle, and fattened calves at the stone of Zohaleth near En-Rogel.

That goes to show that you can be up to no good but be religious while you're at it. He invited all of his brothers, the king's sons, and all the men of Judah who were royal officials, but he did not invite Nathan, the prophet, or Benaiah, or the special guard, or his brother Solomon.

Why didn't he invite him? Because most people don't like folks that don't agree with them. Then Nathan asked Bathsheba, Solomon's mother, have you not heard that Adonijah, the son of Haggith, has become king without our Lord David's knowing it?

Now then, let me advise you how you can save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. Go into King David and say to him, my lord, the king, did you not swear to me, your servant, surely Solomon, your son, shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne?

Why then has Adonijah become king? While you are still there talking to the king, I will come in and confirm what you have said. So Bathsheba went to see the aged king in his room where Abishag, the Shunammite, was attending him.

Bathsheba bowed low and knelt before the king. What is it you want, the king asked. She said to him, my lord, you yourself swore to me, your servant, by the Lord your God, Solomon, your son shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne.

But now Adonijah has become king, and you, my lord, the king, do not even know about it. He has sacrificed great numbers of cattle, fattened calves and sheep, and has invited all the king's sons, Abiathar, the priest, Joab, the commander of the army, but he has not invited Solomon, your servant.

My lord, the king, the eyes of all Israel are on you to learn from you who will sit on the throne, who will sit on the throne of my lord, the king, after him. Otherwise, as soon as my lord, the king, is laid to rest with his fathers, I and my son Solomon will be treated as criminals.

Then King David said, call in Bathsheba. This is after the prophet had been there following her. So she came into the king's presence and stood before him. The king then took an oath, as surely as the lord lives who has delivered me out of every trouble, I will surely carry out today what I swore to you by the lord, the God of Israel.

Solomon, your son, shall be king after me, and he will sit on my throne in my place. Then Bathsheba bowed low with her face to the ground and kneeling before the king said, may my lord, King David, live forever.

King David said, call in Zadok, the priest, Nathan, the prophet, Benaiah, son of Jehoiada. And when they came before the king, he said to them, take your lord's servants with you and set Solomon, my son, on my own mule and take him down to Gihon.

There have Zadok, the priest, and Nathan, the prophet, anointed him king over Israel. Blow the trumpet and shout, long live King Solomon, and then you are to go up with him and he is to come and sit on my throne and reign in my place.

I have appointed him ruler over Israel and Judah. Benaiah, son of Jehoiada, answered the king, amen, may the lord, the God of my lord, the king, so declare it. As the lord was with my lord, the king, so may he be with Solomon to make his throne even greater than the throne of my lord, King David.

Now what happens is, all this happens, the noise spreads abroad, and while Adonijah is high-fiving with his crew and posse, he gets the word, yo, listen, David, your father has just, he didn't say yo like that, but it's a Brooklyn version of this whole thing.

David has made Solomon the king, and then his whole party broke up, and everybody left him. Sometimes you find out who your friends are when troubles come. He had no friends. And then he started to shake for himself because he realized, David made Solomon the king, and he knows what I was trying to pull off.

I am in hot water. At this, all Adonijah's guests rose in alarm and dispersed, but Adonijah, in fear of Solomon, went and took hold of the horns of the altar. He went into the tabernacle where they worshiped, and then Solomon was told, Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon and is clinging to the horns of the altar.

He says, let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword. But Solomon replied, if he shows himself to be worthy, a worthy man, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground, but if evil is found in him, he will die.

And then King Solomon sent men, and they brought him down from the altar, and Adonijah came and bowed down to King Solomon, and Solomon said, go to your home. End of story. Well, the story goes on, but end of our story today.

Reading Biblical Literature Wisely

Why would God put this in the Bible? Because all scripture is inspired and profitable if we rightly divide it. And although this happened thousands of years ago, there's some very valuable lessons. The Bible is made up of different kinds of literature.

There's poetry, there's stuff like Song of Solomon, which you have to read a certain way, is poetry. There's apocalyptic books like Revelation and some of the prophecies of the Old Testament where the language is very symbolic and strong and stars falling to the earth and whatnot, which can't happen literally, or they would destroy the earth.

Stars are much bigger than the earth. And then there's letters in the New Testament that we get doctrine from. There's historical books like the Gospels and Acts and this, Kings, Chronicles, Samuel before it.

And as we read the Bible, we have to ask ourselves, what are the lessons for me today that I can gather? I'm living under the dispensation of the Gospel. I don't live under the law. We're not claiming territory like Joshua did, marching and claim Newark, New Jersey for God and whatnot.

But what are the lessons, God, that you have for me? And I wanna give you three from this story today. Number one, I wanna give you a nugget from the Word of God and one that I've learned over and over again.

Confronting Problems Before They Grow

And the pastors hear me say it all the time in staff meetings. Whatever you don't confront, you will confront. But the problem will be worse and it might happen at a bad time. Whatever you don't confront in life, oh, you will confront.

But most likely, the problem will be bigger and it'll happen at a bad time. While Adonijah was growing up, he was acting all kinds of weird and strange and selfish and arrogant. But even the great David, as in Jesus, son of David, he had his weak moments and his failures in his character.

And he never once asked Adonijah, what is up with you? You are a rascal. You got problems. Your personality is forming and you're not gonna have a friend in life. You're going down the wrong road, son.

And he didn't confront it. Because confrontation takes time, it takes energy, it takes moral courage. Whether it's with your child or some other thing and you're going on in your family, the tendency among a lot of us is to put our head in the sand and make believe things will just go away.

But they don't. And Adonijah was not confronted by his father and he didn't get a little spanking. He probably needed a good beating, forget spanking. How many had parents growing up who weren't like David?

They confronted their children and how many got a good beating growing up? Just lift your hands. I love to see the hands lifted, whoever got a good beating. How many were like me, you got a lot of good beatings?

Put up both hands like that. There we go. We weren't fortunate enough to have a father like David who didn't tend to business. Nah, but David was weak. And he didn't confront Adonijah. And Adonijah was growing up all kinds of crooked.

But you know, that's Adonijah, that's my boy. Think of all the ridiculous things that we say to justify wrongness in our children. So David never confronted it. And now he's on his deathbed and oh, he's confronting it.

The future of the kingdom and the future of Israel is hanging in the balance. And Adonijah has gotten the commander of the army and the priests and a whole bunch of other people, including his siblings from all these different women.

And everything is gonna explode all because David never confronted, never even asked once, the Bible says, as the boy was growing up, why do you act that way? You're a strange little thing. Arrogant little thing.

And therein lies a great lesson for us. Whenever we don't confront and we bury and say, well, it'll all work out, that's the language of a fool. Certain things that we pray about it, we commit to the Lord, we have to just give it to the Lord.

But problems and difficulties of another kind must always be confronted. Because by burying it, you just postpone the day that you will confront it. This is so deep, I can't even get you to say amen. Think how close Bathsheba is gonna have her head taken off if Adonijah becomes king, because Adonijah knew that David favored Solomon, so wipe out the mother and the son.

This is all the doing of David because of the way he raised that boy. Never asked him once, never corrected him, never stopped him, just let him do because that's my boy. So what's the application for us today?

We need wisdom to ask God what to confront and how to confront it, or else we're gonna end up confronting it, but it won't be a little problem, it'll be a monster. Adonijah is now a monster. Because when he was eight and 10 and seven and five, nobody confronted his twisted development.

So the first application is for all of us. As parents, if you're gonna be a parent, when you see your child going wrong, do not bury your head in the sand. Listen to the preacher today. You must confront it.

You must sit down and talk, you must pray, you must ask God for wisdom what to do. Would you please listen to me? Would you please listen to me? Because you're looking at a man who didn't confront a problem when his oldest girl was growing up.

Didn't have the wisdom to see what was going on. Too busy running around preaching, whatever was going on, starting other churches. And saw it and then just kind of just, well, it'll work out. It didn't work out.

Saw friends that she shouldn't have had, that she met right here in this church. And saw a downward spiral and saw her getting hard. So hard that soon she was separated not just from her mom and dad, but from God.

And my wife and I went through a two and a half year long nightmare. I say nightmare. With our daughter out there and me barely being able to hold my emotions together to preach because when it began to bud and be obvious if I had any, I mean, I knew something was wrong, but what to do and to confront it and to stop everything.

Didn't have the wisdom to do it. So you're listening to somebody today who's telling you this from the bottom of their heart. Whatever you don't confront, oh, you will confront it. Oh yes, you will confront it.

Thank God that he intervened and now that teenage girl has grown up and is a woman of God and gifted like her mother and a worship leader and a pastor's wife and God has worked it all out. Thank God. But that does, yeah, let's thank God for that.

Let's thank God for that. But I'm not gonna let myself off the hook. I didn't confront the obvious. I didn't get down to business. Oh, then I had to confront it. And then I got down to real business. But how many tears?

How many nights broken up with no sleep? How many agonizing prayers? Too many to count. So parents, listen to me. Listen to the pastors here. When you see something, ask God to make you wise and sensitive.

When you see something developing in your children, don't gloss over it and don't make believe it's just gonna go away. You ask God for wisdom so you can confront it. How do you confront it? Well, you gotta talk.

You gotta sit. You gotta pray. You gotta maybe ask for counsel. But you gotta confront it. Or you're gonna have an adonijah on your hands. Somebody who's grown up to become a monster. No, he can't be a monster.

Yeah, David's his father. Yeah, David was his father and he still was a monster. Because spirituality doesn't come through DNA. It comes through a meeting with God, confrontation with God. This can happen also in your marriage.

Confrontation in Marriage, Friendship, and the Church

Listen again to the preacher who's counseled a lot of people along with these pastors and have made my own mistakes as a husband. When you feel a wall coming up, when there's a problem, you can't put your head in the sand, you must confront it.

You must have the moral courage, you have the spiritual wisdom to say something developing here is not gonna bring glory to Jesus Christ. How many times do we counsel people and we get the problem when it's full blown?

It never begins that way. It begins with a little blow of a wind. That's all. Everything begins with just a little whiff of wind and a little something and then it's not confronted and now it's growing and now it's monstrous.

And now you got a real problem. The devil has been given space to come in. So you have to confront. Jesus was very confrontational. Peter said one time to him, Lord, you're not gonna go to the cross and let them crucify you?

He said, get thee behind me, Satan. How'd you like to have your pastor tell you that when you whisper something in his ear? No, Jesus called it the way it was. See the way he talked with the scribes and Pharisees.

See the way he dealt with his disciples. Very confrontational, in love, in love. Not a bull in a china shop, not thrashing around knocking people over but with discernment and wisdom, I will confront by the grace of God when I know something's wrong because if I don't confront, time will only aggravate it and then it gets huge.

It can be that way with a friend. You feel a riff growing with a friend. Maybe somebody gossiped about you. Maybe somebody went and filled that person's ear with junk about you and lied because gossips and slanderers do more destruction than people with dynamite sticks.

So you have to go to that person and say, you know what? I feel there's something developed between us. This can be with your family members. This can be with your spouse. This can be with your friends, a choir member.

It's not like it was with us. No, we're not arguing. We're all talking nice and sweet and praise God and God is good all the time and high-fiving but I know and you know something's not right. So have I hurt you?

Because I'm confronting this. I'm not gonna lose you as a friend. Have I hurt you? Because if I did, speak because I'll apologize. Yeah, well, you know the way you said that the other day. I am so sorry.

I didn't mean that. Just put yourself in the wrong. Just put yourself in the wrong. What does it cost? Isn't it better to be a peacemaker? I said, isn't it better to be a peacemaker? Blessed are the peacemakers.

They're called the children of God but confronted because if you believe it'll go away, the walls never come down by themselves. They go up. Then sometimes when you talk, you find out that a third party has sowed discord.

Then you can go get a frying pan and hit that third person over the head with something and say, why you talk like that? Why you gossip? Always remember when you confront things, if someone says, well, somebody told me, well, you know what?

Then get that person here. Oh no, they said they won't come. Then they're a liar. Anyone who won't come in the light and say what supposedly is true is a liar. Come on, everybody say amen to that. Come on, everybody say amen to that.

I hear people come in my office. Haven't we seen that over the years? You know, I heard from somebody that this is so about one of your choir members. Oh yeah, who told you that? Oh no, they wanna remain anonymous.

Well, then to get out of my office, I'm not listening to you. I'm not listening. Anything you said, but go to that person now. You don't have to give up their name to me because they're shaking if I say, because they know I'll call them right on the phone, right while they're in my office.

Oh, I do that all the time. I confront that immediately on the spot. Do I not, brothers? Call on the spot. I don't care if you're at work. I will call you if somebody says you said something ugly about another member who wasn't involved, wasn't there to defend themselves.

Oh no, I went to them, pastor. They come back a week later. I went to them, but they said they can't step forward. They don't wanna get involved. Oh, they don't wanna get involved, but they wanna gossip and they wanna poison somebody else's name, but now they don't wanna get involved.

You got a bad friend, and I don't know if they're a Christian because Christians don't act like that. Christians walk in the light even as God is in the light. Are we all together on this point? Come on, let's put our hands together.

Confronting Spiritual Drift

By the way, can I just say one more thing about that? You know what you need to confront? When you see your own heart drifting away from God, and you see yourself talking in crazy ways that are unkind to other people.

In other words, examine yourself to see whether you're in the faith. Be confrontational. If you see some appetite getting out of control, if you see yourself not reading the Bible anymore, if you see you have no interest in the prayer meeting, if you see you have no interest in winning souls, if your life is consumed by the things of this world, you think by not confronting that it'll get better?

You'll backslide all the way to Australia, excuse me. You'll backslide all the way. You have to confront that. Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. God, what is happening? I'm getting alone in a chair with you.

God, what is happening in my life? I'm gonna confront this because it doesn't get better. It gets worse. So you confront it. Oh, of course God's gonna help us. Lesson number two, real quick, is there are some people that cannot be trusted.

Wisdom in Choosing Trustworthy Leaders

When Adonijah came back and said, yo, Solomon, you know, I just got carried away, Solomon said, go to your home. He wasn't gonna use him as a counselor for anything because there are some people that cannot be trusted and that's why the Bible says, don't put anyone in authority or lay hands on someone until they've proven that they are trustworthy.

There are some people who are out of it and sometimes they're in your own family, like Adonijah. That was Solomon's half-brother. Same father, different mother. Couldn't be trusted. Boy is whacked, he's off.

No, but don't say that, that's your half-brother. Hey, he can't be trusted. There are some people you need wisdom to know who you can trust. You can't let anyone babysit your children. You can't let anybody take your child over for a weekend.

Don't you get it? Come on, how many are with me? We say amen to that. We gotta ask God for wisdom. Who do you trust? Who do you trust? You know, you can't put anybody in charge of all this stuff with the food program.

You gotta find people who are not only trustworthy and organized and intelligent, but they're full of grace and love because they gotta work with other people and they can't be up in everyone's grill and talking inappropriately.

So what happens is you gotta find out where you're gonna find those people. Not everybody's trustworthy. There are some people who can sing good or know Bible verses, but you can't let them interact too long with certain people because they just don't have it together socially.

They're dysfunctional socially. They don't have many friends, why? Because they can't be trusted to talk nicely to people. The person who has friends has to show themselves friendly. So you can't trust everybody.

You can't trust everybody to go in business with. Please, save us counseling hours. You don't go into business with everyone because they're from your island or country or they're in your family. Ask God for wisdom.

Not everybody can be trusted. Come on, can we say amen to that? My goodness. Now, as an addendum to that one, there are not only people who can't be trusted, there are people who hurt you. Like Adonijah did Solomon.

Responding to Those Who Hurt You

They're up to no good. Don't you get back at them. Let God take care of it. Notice what he said? You go to your home. Right now, I just wouldn't put King and I'm not gonna get involved in that. Let's give it a New Testament application.

Paul says in 2 Timothy at the end of the last letter that he writes, Alexander the metal worker has done me great harm. And then he warns Timothy, watch out for him. But he also says, the Lord will repay him for what he has done.

Don't you make a phone call about him? Don't you speak about them? Don't you gossip back? Don't you condemn him to someone else? If someone's been mean to you and hurt you, give it to God. Because if you get involved at all, God will step back and won't deal with it.

Who would you rather take care of your enemies, yourself or God? Come on. I want God to take care of that. Because he knows, he shows mercy, he's always redemptive. So don't talk about anybody. If someone's done you real, and you don't trust them and they've done you hurt, just don't mention their name anymore.

And if someone says, what do you think about someone? No comment. Adonijah, go to your room. Play with your dolls. I'm not messing with you. Because when you get in the mud with the people, you dirty yourself with them.

Yeah, but they were wrong, you don't know what they did. I know, let God take care of it. Don't talk back, don't answer back, don't spread rumors about them. But they spread rumors about me. Let it go.

God will take care of it. In fact, the more you let God take care of it, they're gonna be in a heap of trouble if they don't repent. And he might just have them crawl back to you on their knees and say, forgive me.

Because all he has to do is give them one dream at night or put them on their deathbed. And they might be calling your cell quick. Now, you got those lessons, Phil Carr? How many got two good lessons?

Lift your hand if you got the two lessons. All right, now the last one. You gotta always remember, God's ways are not our ways. God's thoughts are not your thoughts. God's ways are not our ways. Because here's the best lesson in this whole story.

God’s Mercy Redeems Human Failure

God's mercy is greater than our wicked, embarrassing mess ups. And he can even build on a disaster and make something beautiful. How do I know that? Because of all the boys, of all the men, young men, that David was the father of, there's only one that should never be the king.

And that's Solomon. Why? Because Solomon's mother is Bathsheba. And who's Bathsheba? Bathsheba was the wife of a man named Uriah the Hittite, who was a leader in David's army. But when David was much younger, he should have been out fighting battles, but he didn't.

He went up on the roof one night because he couldn't sleep, and Bathsheba was bathing on the top of another roof, another house, and he lusted after her, and he said, send for her. And when someone said to a woman, the king wants you, you're going.

And he not only had her, he didn't have her over just for coffee and cake. He slept with her, and she got pregnant. And then to cover up her pregnancy, he brought Uriah the Hittite back, and gave him leave from the battles and the war he was involved in, and tried to send him home.

But you know what the guy did? He said, no, I can't go home and be with my wife because all the other soldiers are fighting and enduring hardship. I will just sleep right here on the outside of your palace.

And David's going, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Because if I can get him to go home and have sex with his wife, who will know who's the dad of the baby? So the next night, he has him again, and he gets him drunk.

This is all David, as in David who wrote the Psalms. He got him too drunk, and he collapsed outside the palace, and he never got home. So you know what David did? He said, I gotta get strong now. He told, imagine how crazy sin can make us.

He sent a letter to Joab and said, attack a certain town. And just when the battle's the most hottest, withdraw all the troops except for Uriah the Hittite. And they did it, and guess who died? Uriah the Hittite.

And so then Joab sends a messenger back to King David and says, give him this report. We went, we attacked the town. The battle was so hard, and we mostly escaped, but Uriah the Hittite died. And David said, you know, what are you gonna do?

War is a really, it's a beast. War is a beast. People die. And he went on for months like this. And then she gave birth to the baby. He didn't write any Psalms during this time, you can be sure, because he was like we get sometimes, just estranged from God.

Someone says, no, once you know God, you can't fall away from God. Oh yeah? How about David? And then the baby died. And David was confronted before that by a prophet who said, you're the man. You're getting mad at the story I told you about a greedy man who wouldn't kill his own animals, but just killed one little sheep of a poor family.

And you're getting all upset. Isn't it something how righteously indignant we can get with other people's sins? But with ours, we're blind. Isn't that something how we can judge everyone, but ourselves, we can't see, although we look in the mirror every day.

The baby died. But Bathsheba became one of his wives, and she gave birth to a boy named Solomon. Now that's the last one you want king, because then if David dies, who would be the royal mother? Bathsheba, and just the sight of Bathsheba is gonna make everybody go, Bathsheba.

You know, Bathsheba. That's Bathsheba. You know when they, yeah, Bathsheba, yeah. And God says, no, you don't send Bathsheba and her children away to the wilderness. I'm gonna put her son on the throne, because my mercy is greater than your mess up.

Oh, come on. Do we serve a great and a mighty God? Can we put our hands together loud? Time to stop preaching, every eye closed. We learned some nuggets of wisdom for life, but the best nugget of all is grace is greater than our sin.

Grace, Repentance, and Receiving a New Life

Where sin abounds, grace even more abounds. You know what grace is, for those of you visiting or not too knowledgeable about the Bible? Grace is God's love and action doing good things for you even though you don't deserve it.

Grace is God doing for you what you can't do for yourself. There's a lot of definitions of grace, but his mercy and his grace, he loves you so much, it doesn't matter how you messed up. And don't you let the devil today be telling you, no, you messed up so bad, you're really done.

God could never use you. God could never bless you or your family or that baby born out of wedlock, that baby has no chance of the blessing of God. Oh yeah, God can make him king, how about that? God can make him a king.

Oh, I thank God that Adonijah didn't become the next king of Israel, Solomon did, whose mother was Bathsheba, part of the lowest chapter in David's life because God was telling us, I'll take the worst, I can take the worst chapter you write and make the story end beautifully.

Anybody here, just before I say a dismissal prayer, anybody here in need of some mercy from God, some help from God? You're fractured, maybe someone else did it to you, maybe you did it to yourself, but right now you're just hurt, you're damaged goods.

I don't care if one of you come, I'll put my arm around you. I'll hug you, I'll pray over you. My deacons and deaconesses and pastors, we wanna help you, anybody wanna just say pastor? That message was for me, especially the end of it.

I just, I need to give my mess to God. I've been trying to fight out of it myself, I can't get out of this mess I'm in. Just come up out of your seat and stand here. God will take your mess and make it into something beautiful.

I promise you that on the authority of God's word. I don't care if you're from Australia, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Brooklyn, the Bronx, wherever you're from, you just come and stand here. God, I give you my mess, I give you my pain, I give you my fractured life, I give you the confusion, the chaos, you did not create me to live like this.

No, you didn't. I want your peace now, I want your joy, I want cleansing from sin, I want a new direction, and I want to have a new destination that I'm gonna live in forever and ever. I ask you to show mercy, and where sin has abounded, I ask you that your grace would abound according to your promise.

I pray that you will build something beautiful out of ashes and tears. Out of ashes and tears, I ask you to build something beautiful in these men and women's lives. And it starts with receiving you, Jesus, as our Lord and our Savior.

We repent of our sins. Everybody repeat after me in the whole building. Dear God, forgive me of my sin as I forgive those who have sinned against me. Change my life, make my heart clean. I crown you as king over every area of my life.

I will not just go to church, I will follow the Lord all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever and ever, amen. Let's clap our hands one last time. Lord, may the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all your people today.

Give us the rest of a great day, loving, encouraging each other. Help us as we hug these folks here in the front. We pray it in Jesus' name and everyone said. Turn around and hug somebody.